Shareware Buisness Advice

Like right now, the next "first" step I am going to take is to draft my business plan - did you do one? Was it usefull?

I can't help with coding stuff, I would suggest the cocoadev mailing list for that, but I'd be happy to talk about business plans and ideas since that's likely to help me too.

I haven't had much luck with formal business plans. I think I read somewhere that for tiny businesses like ours a formal business plan is really only useful if you are trying to get a loan from a bank. I didn't do that and probably wouldn't recommend it, unless you already know a lot more about business then I do. In my experience shareware is always time constrained, not money constrained.

Instead of a trying to write a formal business plan I would (do it) recommend reading "The E Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. That's been by far the most useful business book that I've read, too bad I didn't read it until this last winter. The idea is to design your business a bit like a piece of software (something that runs, has processes and rules). I've tried to document Hog Bay Softwares processes and rules in the company guide. While your reading you should also read "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind", and "Purple Cow" .

I would recommend reading these books before you start working on your business again, I wish I had read them before starting. Here are a couple of thoughts on your current business/website:

Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca

No matter how good your Sambucus software is it's going to be very difficult to sell because you have so much competition from other programs that do pretty much the same thing. I'm guilty of this too, (my timer and notebook) are fairly unoriginal in function, but that's why I'm trying to differentiate by giving users the power to change them. But even with that I think I would still be better off if I was writing software that was a little more specific and had less competition.

Wow!

(First, thank you for taking the time to answer me, and making it a double-hit by creating this thread so that everyone can benefit / pitch in... Great idea! And now, on with the comment.)

It is very refreshing to see you so opened about your business... I have started thinking about building a community around my products too, but I never thought about involving them that much... I can't help but to be a little afraid of competitors though... Not so much for sales figures and the like (what are they going to do, really?) but your beta-testing and open source options... Aren't you afraid that competitors will mascarade as beta-testers or order your source code and steal your ideas? How has this worked exactly, for Notebook 3.5? Obviously you are satisfied with the process, otherwise this website would have changed... How did you cope with the potential "threat"? Or am I being my snively-paranoid old self again here? : )

Jean Le Clerc
Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca

It is very refreshing to see you so opened about your business... I have started thinking about building a community around my products too, but I never thought about involving them that much... I can't help but to be a little afraid of competitors though...

It's hard to say how it will work. This website and the new business process is all new and still in "beta" testing. Notebook 3.5 was released before these changes and so it's not plugin based and there is no source code access. Clockwork is available, but I haven't really make it public, so there are not many users. I'll make the site public once I get Forest (next version of notebook) to the point where I can make a early release.

Aren't you afraid that competitors will mascarade as beta-testers or order your source code and steal your ideas?

Possible I guess, but I'm not sure how much damage this would do. For the software that I do the ideas aren't all that ground breaking. Hog Bay Notebook for instance looks pretty much like Mail.app except for managing notes instead of email. For program code there is already lots of free example code on the web, the hard part is creating an entire application that will hold together, so someone stealing individual lines of code shouldn't be to much of a problem I think. Also I doubt any of my most important competitors would do something like that in any case.

The one issue that may become a problem is having a pirate remove the license key code and then redistribute the application. That is certainly a possibility, but distribution will be a pain for them. They can't include a whole application in a serial number list so they will have to spend a lot of time getting the word out about a download URL.

The thing is, I don't mind getting my ideas stolen per say - copying is indeed a form of flattery - but since I can't put as much time as I'd like on my business (it's still a side job) or as much as the next guy puts on his product, I'm afraid my ideas will make it to their product first! But, then again, if you don't risk it, you won't get it, right? I mean, with the huge success of open-source communities evreywhere, I think it's time for me to start thinking that the majority of people out there are nice people, with good intents... But this brings us all back to the niche-market you talked about earlier: the more competitors you have, the most likely they are, I guess to steal some of your ideas at some point. Whereas if you are the only one doing the thing, then you need not worry about that so much... As for serial numbers, well, strangely, that is something I am not worried about...! (My shrink sessions cost me a fortune!) I have made my peace with pirates a long time ago, figuring that if I spend too muc time trying to thwart them, I am not having fun, and it's almost pointless...

OK, well, anyways, thanks for the info here, I gotta get me that E-Myth book now and do some reading!

Jean Le Clerc
Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca

Sorry, I just realized I did not quite replied to your post, but barged in with more questions... : ) You are right, Sambucus is not, in itself, unique. Funny enough though, I never really thought about it before you put it in myy face like this... This could explain a lot! : ) Sambucus has been generating about $2,500 a year - that's no publicity, no Google ads and the likes, just plain old press releases for new releases... So if you're living off fast food, well, I'm the guy licking the grease off your fast food wrappers! : ) I always thought that if I did a little marketing effort, I could boost sales... Probably true, but in my mind, marketing solved all and I would be rich!...

I have some kind of an edge, though on my competitors, but it's not easily sold: my technical support is outstanding. But you don't sell a software by saying that you will offer excellent technical support for free. That's just a bonus for the buyer, not a sales pitch... It has been great for word of mouth, though...

So now that I realize that I have a lot of competition, it made me re-organize my priorities... There are a few features / modules that I think will give me a better advantage, so I just might develop them sooner... It also has shown me that, although Sambucus is my flagship application right now, another project I have which is targeting a specific audience, might just be worth some extra time...

Thanks!!

Jean Le Clerc
Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca

I do consulting 1 day a week and that brings in another 10,000. My wife makes a similar (though more) amount, and most importantly her job has health insurance that covers us both and would be very expensive to buy if we needed to buy it ourselves. Together we make about 40,000, certainly not rich, but plenty to live on.

I spend at least 40+ hours a week on Hog Bay, often quite a bit more. Right now my wife is working full time and going to school for a second bachelors degree so we are usually pretty busy. So i'm working lots, but I can also take a day off when I want or go for a hike in the afternoon without feeling guilty that I'm leaving work early.

OK, this puts things in perspective... You basically have weeks of around 50-60 hours... I guess your wife works roughly as much, with school and work... So the free time you do have, you probably can take together right?

So how about associating? Ever thought it about taking on a partner? How do you think it would work out? Too much free time or too little money? ; )

Jean Le Clerc
Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca

Yeah we do have some free time together! And I do have long weeks, but it's not all spent coding. I also spend quite a bit of time reading to keep up with new stuff online, and even this post I would classify under my work hours. So far (and I think this is the case for many shareware authors) the big problem is making myself go do other things that are related to the company. In general it's very fun and addictive to work on Hog Bay Software so the hours are easy to put in.

Partnerships. This is something that I've been thinking about a lot and drives many of the changes on this new beta site. I don't have the skills, money, or really the desire to hire employees or enter a formal partnership where I bring in someone new who will work full time on Hog Bay Software. But I would love to have more brains then mine taking part.

That's really the driving force behind the "User Powered" theme of this new site. I'm building my applications on a plugin architecture, with deep applescript support (and share my source code with registered users) so that users have the power to change my software and add new features that they need. When they do that they've also "partnered" with me since they are adding new features that I don't have the time to add myself. The great thing about this type of partnership is there is a big benefit to both sides and not very much risk.

Another partnership that I've though about is hosting and selling other developers applications on the Hog Bay Site. I've put a lot of work into creating a Hog Bay Software "process" and if another developer would commit to following that process then I would be interested in hosting their software. The benefit for me would be they would help improve and debug the Hog Bay Software process, and they would bring more traffic to the site. But there is the quality control issue, I'm not sure how to deal with that.

Yeah we do have some free time together! And I do have long weeks, but it's not all spent coding. I also spend quite a bit of time reading to keep up with new stuff online, and even this post I would classify under my work hours. So far (and I think this is the case for many shareware authors) the big problem is making myself go do other things that are related to the company. In general it's very fun and addictive to work on Hog Bay Software so the hours are easy to put in.

Of course! It's not all coding! I'm a little thankful for that, coding all day long with nothing else would probably get very hard after a while...

But now, let me ask you this - because I'm finding myself in that spot right now - now you bring in about $20,000 a year with your products and one-day a week consulting... But when you started working on your products, withouth any income coming from Hog Bay Software yet, how did you live? Did you have a full-time job? How many hours were you able to put on your stuff back then?

I never thought of client participation as partnership but you are dead right, it is... And I love the idea of Hog Bay Software process-users ring thing... : ) But say I wanted to submit a software of mine, if/when it got posted on Hog Bay Software's website, would it be as a Hog Ba Software product, or a third-party product that respects the HBS process? Quality control could be done by a panel of "judges", or beta-testers... You could give them an evaluation grid, then calculate the mean and if that final note was above a certain treshold, the application would be good enough for HBS, otherwise the developper would have to make corrections - provided with the judge's score sheets and comments, this could be a huge help to the developper to make the application better... Come to think of it, maybe the judges should be "regular" folks, even more than developpers - this would be more than a beta-testing (which at this point, the developper should have already done) it should be a test to see wether or not the application, born from the HBS process, is of good enough quality to satisfy its customers... That would be pretty awesome, I think... Maybe it could be a separate entity from HBS, since it would mean more work for you, as a separate thing, you might be able to either charge developpers for consideration, or at least put ads on your website to try and make some money out of it... But then you loose the increased traffic on HBS' website... And maybe I'm getting too excited again and I'm making a monster out of something quite elegant and simple....

Jean Le Clerc
Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca

But when you started working on your products, withouth any income coming from Hog Bay Software yet, how did you live? Did you have a full-time job? How many hours were you able to put on your stuff back then?

I had a full time job until about 2 years ago, and working on Hog Bay Software was certainly more difficult. Most of my after work hours were spent on Hog Bay Software, and it never got old (it was fun) but I did often feel guilty that I wasn't doing much else. I don't remember how many hours I put in, but probably around 10-15 most weeks. It's much better now that I don't have a "real" job my free time really is free time.

But say I wanted to submit a software of mine, if/when it got posted on Hog Bay Software's website, would it be as a Hog Ba Software product, or a third-party product that respects the HBS process?

I don't know, I wouldn't expect this to happen very often, so it would probably be on a case by case basis. If you are really interested in doing this I'm sure we could work something out. Note that (at least in my mind) the biggest thing that an app needs to do to be a "hog bay app" is be built on the Blocks framework. And that's open source so you could start with that and you would still have the option to publish the app yourself. Or if you wanted to use the Hog Bay Site your app would already be setup correctly.

For now I'll be the judge, jury, and executioner for these types of decisions. At some point it would be very cool to have people "vote" on what apps we have, but I'm not sure if we would ever have enough candidate apps to make that really worthwhile.

Jesse

For making money your completely right, It's much easier to make money by consulting then by selling shareware. The problem is it's much more fun to write shareware, and that's the driving force for why I do it.

The other nice thing is that I suspect that my shareware results will improve over time. So I doubt I'll be rich in 5 years, but I'm sure I'll be doing better then I am now (or else I may be out of business :)).

Jesse

Very refreshing to see both of your views on developing your own software over consulting...

I'll second Jesse's comment - I too am in it by passion first and foremost. I aim to make a decent living off of it, but I don't need to get extremely rich from it: having found a job that I love is worth a lot, so I can lower the bar on my financial expectations! : )

Jean Le Clerc
Logiciels Malus Softwares
http://www.malus.ca